Let's Chat about GPT event at UNL

 

Tech EDGE, Teaching World Language with Technology - Introduction

It has been a delight to start a new series on using technology in the World Language Classroom. I believe that podcasting is one of the best ways to disseminate knowledge.

Exhibitions and Celebrations of Learning

One of the elements of the Art TEAMS approach is for each learning cycle to end in an exhibition (or celebration) of learning. The exhibition of learning is an opportunity for the learning community to celebrate achievement get positive feedback, and encourage students to start thinking about their development in thinking and making. I recently visited one of our schools, exploring how exhibitions of learning worked in an elementary classroom. 

The teacher organized the tables in a circle (in a tight space, I might add). Each student organized the products they wanted to display across their desk. Some chose EVERYTHING and had very little space, others chose their favorite exemplars, and finally, one innovative student had many learning artifacts but chose to include an arrow pointing to her favorite artifact saying: "You have to read THIS!" 

All students had a stack of feedback notes and went around the room examining other students learning artifacts and leaving positive feedback based on sentence frames projected on the board. 

A debrief after such an event can help students process a portfolio approach and consider what is the most effective approach, not just as the creator but also as the consumer. 

The exhibition of learning gives the students sense of accomplishment and motivation. It can be a great source of metacognition as well. The same can be said for the teacher, a look at the variety and creativity gives the teacher a sense of accomplishment but also a tool to reflect on what could be better next time and what missed opportunities can be seized on in the next inquiry cycle or in subsequent years. 

As an observer in the classroom, the excitement and pride of the students were palpable. Students were smiling, engaged, and proud. I highly recommend creating these moments for students and bringing in administrators and, when possible, parents and guardians to celebrate reaching complex learning goals.

Art TEAMs is made possible a grant from the US Department of Education and by the emergent, collaborative interactions between many individuals. A deep gratitude is extended to all who participated in the experience of teaching (and learning) with emerging media and arts, including teachers (Sarah Holz, Kate Gracie, Maggie Elsner, Matt Auch Moedy, Sarah Gabelhouse, Amy Spilker, Megan Pitrat, Andrew (Mark) James, Jessi Wiltshire, Jessica Davis, Ryan Margheim, Sarah Kroenke, Katie Samson, Melissa Sellers, Casey Sorenson) for embracing ambiguity and vulnerability and expanding into new ways of seeing; administrators (Dr. Lynn Fuller) for holding space and having conversations about new ideas; museum educators (Laura Huntimer) for offering valuable educational resources; teaching artists (Cayleen Green, Fernando Montejano, Angel Geller, and Isabella Meier) for sharing their creative processes; the advisory board (Megan Elliott, Dr. Jorge Lucero, and Dr. Diana Cornejo-Sanchez) for shepherding the design and development of the program; and the research team (HyeonJin Yoon, Carrie Bohmer, Maggie Bertsche, Lorinda Rice, Mackayla Kelsey, Dr. Guy Trainin, Gretchen Larsen, Joelle Tangen, and Kimberley D’Adamo) for weaving together the many pedagogic and curricular threads of a complex tapestry. 

High Quality Professional Learning (Part2)

This is an update on last week's post on High-Quality Instructional Materials. The meeting in Nashville was a true exchange of ideas and strategies. What I appreciated the most was the move from an emphasis on the materials to an emphasis on Professional Learning. State engaged in the work explained in detail how they went about using the materials as a first step, but the magic and success were completely dependent on the ways that professional learning happened and the expectation and support for that learning to happen.

As one of the speakers started with: you must communicate clearly that this is HARD work. Because it is hard, it is imperative that school administration and resources are there to support teachers across a few years of professional growth.

In sum, I am more encouraged by the direction the work is taking, but I am still wondering about the balance between resources divided between materials, and professional learning and worried that some places will never get to professional learning. 

In Art TEAMS, we focus on student inquiry and the processes that help teachers design better student experiences. In many senses, we provide High-Quality Professional Learning that maps back to teachers' existing curricula. I am now wondering how much better the result would be if the curriculum was more uniformly better. 

High Quality Materials and Teacher Learning

 The Nebraska Department of Education invited me to the IMPD network conference. I am always happy to participate and see if I can learn and contribute. At the same time, I have to admit that I am somewhat skeptical. I do not doubt that high-quality materials are helpful and more useful than low-quality materials. However, I think about it in an 80/20 split. High-quality materials will contribute to better instruction, but that represents a contribution of about 20% of total improvement. The 80% is in teacher professional learning and development that will raise efficacy and skill. 

The upside of High-Quality materials includes teacher confidence in the curriculum and reducing the need to scrounge for resources late at night. This confidence reduces the pressure on teachers' out-of-school time and gives breathing room for thinking about differentiation and accommodation of different learners. From an information processing perspective, we are reducing teacher cognitive load to enable more effective instructional procedures. 

From this perspective, High-quality materials are a no-brainer; bring it on, and engage with the process. Let's do it! The challenge, however, can be articulated at the individual teacher and system levels.

The cognitive load question can play an opposite role at the individual teacher level. A teacher is using a familiar curriculum is able to be creative around it and differentiate for her students. The familiarity reduces the load, an effect I have seen in reverse every time a district adapts a new curriculum. As a teacher educator, I have placed students in classrooms every semester for the past 20 years. Every time our district decides on a new reading curriculum, teachers reduce the number of preservice teachers they will host, disallow any creative deviation from the curriculum, and be fairly stressed. After about two years, the familiarity once again allows for more adaptation. So the question becomes, does the new curriculum adapted is such an improvement on the old one that it justifies the change. If you accept the 80/20 idea, the bar for improvement is quite high. This effect can be mitigated if you use curriculum change for significant professional learning. Then it becomes a leverage point for growth.

This is when the systemic effect presents with a second challenge; since schools invest significant attention into the process and money into materials, little is left for meaningful professional learning. The danger is that by the time materials are selected, bought, and introduced, everyone is exhausted and does not pay attention to the professional learning required to make it work. The calls for fidelity and making sure spending is justified clash with the individual needs of teachers and students. Moreover, school administration often projects implicitly or explicitly a conformity message that constrains teachers from acting in their best professional judgment.

In the context of our professional learning in Art TEAMS,
we are working very much on the 80% side of teacher professional learning. We acknowledge curriculum and work with teachers to develop ways to differentiate and deepen using metacognitive strategies (such as the creative inquiry process (Marshall and D'Adamo, 2011)) pedagogic moves, and collaborative learning opportunities. It would be interesting to see how teachers change their use of the strategies as the curriculum shifts.

Eco-Learning Literacy and Art

 At the Literacy Research Association meeting in Arizona, I attended a session on Climate Justice (ecology and literacy). A few weeks later, I am spending time with colleagues Kimberley D'Adamo and Laurie Rich, imagining how we can support educators in fostering processing climate learning through art making. the most visible part of the work is the website Art/Act: Educate. This website includes a collection of artists creating environmental art that is attentive to both local conditions and the overall ecological challenge.

One such artist is the indefatigable Leah Wilson, whose amazing work spans many visual approaches and ecosystems.  We are dreaming of supporting educators (in the broadest sense possible) interested in developing art projects addressing environmental concerns and celebrations. Our goal is to increase environmental awareness and give rise to two generations. The first is a generation of educators who help students process the challenge productively and innovatively. The second is creating a generation of youth better equipped to face environmental concerns through art and a deeper understanding of science and the human impact of the challenge we face as a species.

Happy New Year- New Ventures

 The last few months have been extremely busy, and I had fewer opportunities to blog. As the new year commences, I am sharing of our new projects for 2023. This time I would like to focus on our podcasts/ video series coming.

Nick Husbye and I started a podcast for Graduate Students, and junior faculty in Education called "Not that Kind of Doctor. You can find it on YouTube, Apple Podcasts, and Spotify.

The ART TEAMS project Podcast has lunched at the beginning of December:

Tech EDGE in collaboration with the Nebraska Department of Education will launch a series of video podcasts with Chrystal Liu on integrating technology in the World Language Classroom.  YouTube, Apple Podcasts, and Spotify. You can catch it here: https://www.youtube.com/@techedge01 episodes start February 1.

Drop me a line with any feedback on the main issues.

Art TEAMS Successes and Lessons in Year 1

 Many teachers have shared that the program is helping them reconnect to teaching, combat burnout, and feel rejuvenated.  In their feedback and reflections, they attribute this to:

● The careful creation of a strong sense of community and trust

● Responsive curriculum design and feeling heard

● Slowness and airiness-a focus on depth rather than breadth, iteration, spiraling curriculum, and being given time for deep thinking and making

● The mantra “Completion is not the goal” (Lucero)

● Movement segments & reconnecting to their bodies as instruments for learning

Movement and reflection: Teacher participants, Team members, and Advisory Board members expressed the necessity of movement and reflection as the key to processing in their learning experiences and communicated a desire to continue movement and reflective practices. One teacher noted, “the movement piece was absolutely essential to connecting all of this together,” while several others shared the impact of having “more time for reflection” and “reflection times” provided opportunities to slow down and process.   

Challenges in project implementation and lessons for moving forward

Keeping teaching artists engaged 

Teaching Artists were engaged during the concentrated summer workshops. During the academic year, their participation dropped off and was considerably more limited. We are working with our artists, board members and the art community to think about ways to productively engage artists throughout the life of the grant.

Recruiting administrators 

In the post-COVID educational environment, it was hard for administrators to commit large chunks of time. As a result, we inverted the relationship and reached out individually to spend time with each administrator in a time they could find. We used our flexibility to compensate for Administrators' rigid schedules.

Grace

After the last two years of teaching during the Pandemic and Racial Reckoning, educators expressed exhaustion, and some were thinking of a career change. The Curriculum we constructed and adjusted took that reality into account, providing choice and “airiness”. As a result, teachers became more motivated and thought less about a career change. The grant had a significant positive impact on well-being and willingness to continue teaching. We will continue to reduce the number of transitions and give more time for the application of content, to expand the amount of time on the task.

What contributions the project has made to research, knowledge, practice, and/or policy. 

The project is in its first year, and we have limited contributions so far:

Conducting a thematic analysis of post-workshop comments, we uncovered four key themes that were identified, including 1) Movement and Reflection, 2) Collaborative Community, 3) Studio Access and Tool Time, and 4) Curricular Revision and Classroom Implementation.  

Movement and Reflection  

Several teacher participants expressed the necessity of both movement and reflection as modes of pausing and processing in their learning experiences and communicated a desire to continue movement and reflective practices. 

Collaborative Community   

Teachers also indicated the benefit of building and maintaining a supportive network through collaboration, specifically through conversation, observing each other’s work, and developing relationships. 

Studio Access and Tool Time  

Teachers shared continued excitement about the development of EMA projects and learning about tools to continue materializing projects. 

Curricular Revision and Classroom Implementation  

Teacher participants revealed a need for increased time with TFU (Teaching for Understanding), classroom implementation, curricular revision, and focusing on subject content. 

Acknowledgments:

Art TEAMs is made possible by the emergent, collaborative interactions between many individuals. A deep gratitude is extended to all who participated in the experience of teaching (and learning) with emerging media and arts, including teachers (Matt Auch-Moedy, Jessica Davis, Maggie Elsner, Sarah Gabelhouse, Kate Gracie, , Sarah Holz, Mark James, Sarah Kroenke, Ryan Margheim, Megan Pitrat, Katie Samson, Melissa Sellers, Amy Spilker, and Jessi Wiltshire,) for embracing ambiguity and vulnerability and expanding into new ways of seeing; administrators (Dr. Lynn Fuller) for holding space and having conversations about new ideas; museum educators (Laura Huntimer) for offering valuable educational resources; teaching artists (Cayleen Greene, Fernando Montejano, Angel Geller, and Isabella Meier) for sharing their creative processes; the advisory board (Megan Elliot, Dr. Jorge Lucero, and Dr. Diana Cornejo-Sanchez) for shepherding the design and development of the program; and the research team (Kimberley D’Adamo, Lorinda Rice, Guy Trainin, HyeonJin Yoon, and Maggie Bertsche, Carrie Bohmer, Mackayla Kelsey, and Gretchen Larsen) for weaving together the many pedagogic and curricular threads of a complex tapestry.  

Art TEAMS Path to Emerging Media Arts

Our project-

Art TEAMS (Supported by the US Dept of Education) focuses on Emerging Media Arts. The methodology we created is focused on a process of self-discovery and making artistic choices within the broader framework of contemporary art. To be honest, I started getting worried that our teachers are not exploring enough Emerging Media. Since we did not force the issue in any way I was not sure what would happen at our exhibitions of learning. As I walked through the exhibits almost all included emerging media arts as part of the exhibition.

What did I learn from our current exhibitions of learning:

1. Trust the process. If we provide choices, options, and tools, inquisitive, creative minds will get there independently. Since the path is natural and unforced it will also become more organic.

2. Trust your colleagues. When knowledgeable others lead, just let the process unfold. 

3. Trust your participants /co-researchers. If there is a path, providing opportunities will let creative minds find it.

4. Letting the process unfold over time. We are so used to reaching objectives at the end of a lesson or a week. But the most complex skills and expressions of learning just take much longer to percolate and bubble up.

Learning Analytics, Validity, and Theory

 This week I participated in the inaugural FLAIEC conference. It was a delightful opportunity to talk with various researchers at different levels and years of experience.

The keynote speakers, who are leaders in the field, have called for a more critical approach to examining the validity of the different indicators. 

Dragan Gašević in his opening keynote, outlined the opportunities and challenges for the advancement of validity of measurement in learning analytics. While Dirk Ifenthaler called for careful processing of the existing literature in an effort to build a valid set of meaningful indicators.

This topic has been central to our group's work. We have long discussions about ways to validly connect the digital traces of learning with reasonable assumptions. The most significant aspect of validity is a robust theoretical set of assumptions. A theory or framework should not be assumed to be infallible. In fact, I believe that we can use our data to confirm or challenge existing theories to develop a better understanding of human learning. 

The abundance of data can lead to overfitting the data to a specific theory. For example, we are currently looking at the importance of Self Regulation (as did many of the papers at the conference). The data fits the theory rather well, with the effect of self-regulation on course achievement significant but entirely mediated by specific learning behaviors. As I reviewed our results, I started wondering about the power of alternative theories. One of our next steps will be to contrast this theory with other theories and see which one fits better with our data and which is more stable across courses and time. 

The theory does not absolve us of the need to check in with more traditional (even psychometric) forms of validity. But for me, a theory is still the key to understanding the data. I am also eager to see what data from our online learners of code can tell us about the development of computer science knowledge, but that is a blog post for another time.

Notes from CSEdCon

Last week I traveled to CSEdCon 2022. As always Code.Org published State of CSE 2022 showing that despite the pandemic progress has been made in a variety of fronts. The two Nebraska representatives (Dr. John Skretta joined me this time) spent quite a bit of our energy learning from the experience of others, and discussing our ideas in meeting the goals outlined in our recent legislation Legislative bill 1112, the Computer Science and Technology Act. We are eager to start working on the problem as the code.org regional partner and the lead institution in the state. We hope to partner with the Nebraska Department of education in making a difference for the students of Nebraska.

I had many discussions in CSEdCon about the critical time to get students interested in Computer Science. Some support an emphasis on Elementary/ primary education. The claim is that early interest can capture all students and significantly increase the odds that girls and students of color will become motivated to pursue computer science. This is true but not quite enough. We know from our research in multiple STEM fields that the very students we were focused on lost interest during the middle school years despite high interest during their primary years.

Others focus on high school, most prominently because of the new high school graduation requirement. I believe that high school (especially beyond 9th grade) is simply too late. Students have established areas of interest and often some idea about a chosen field. They might fulfill a requirement, but that is not very likely to change trajectories as much as needed.

As a result, when asked by any school where to start, I suggest Middle school(more specifically, grades 7-9). This is the age where students may lose interest or get discouraged, and it is early enough to create new trajectories. This is by no means enough. Once a middle grades program is established, a school would start rolling down the elementary, creating better-prepared students and high school classes now answering new demands by excited students and parents.

And if you get this in time- do not forget hour of code in early December!

Schools as a Malleable Material

 The Art TEAMS project has an exceptional advisory council. This group of professionals includes Diana Cornejo-Sanchez, Megan Elliott, and Jorge Lucero. This group of thinkers and doers stretches our thinking and brings joy and engagement into our work. A key moment for me was when Jorge Lucero challenged us to think about school as a malleable material. 

Jorge Lucero (Photo from Engage Art)

What I say from this point forward is my interpretation of the topic inspired by Jorge but the responsibility for any mistake is mine alone. If you think like an artist, the world around us is filled with materials that we can shape to make art. Thinking like an artist helps think about the world as a material that can be shaped, rejecting the notion that the material should be accepted as is. We tend to regard schools and schooling as rigid structures that need to be abided to (especially for teachers and students) or completely reformed or even replaced (policymakers). But what if the best approach is to think about schools as malleable and set on a journey to discover how and where we can shape that malleability to create something new and beautiful.

This is exactly the role we see for Art TEAMS. While we explore using art and creativity to transform learning in classrooms, we are also seeking to start teasing out how to find malleability and push its boundaries to create better classrooms that will be culturally responsive, opening new futures and experiences for all students and their teachers.

In our work with teachers this summer, we came up with some ideas about how schools can be malleable. So I am sharing this list with you as a way to start a discussion.

1. Designing the building. While not a daily occurrence, schools do renovate and sometimes build new schools. This is a golden opportunity to rethink the design of the school and create new affordances for learning. The Pegasus Bay story is such an example.

2. Schedules: Time is a great material that allows new things to happen. Changing schedules by creating longer learning periods or conversely dedicating a few weeks to exploration are great ways to create opportunities for change and deep and self-guided learning. Even adding a few minutes of movement every day could be transformative.

3. Changing mindset- a focus on a growth perspective for teachers and learners can transform the way we think about the way we teach, assess, and provide feedback.

4. People: the way we team, support each other, and leverage student strengths can help create a more vibrant and healthy.

I am including our original whiteboard ideation board and promise to keep exploring and writing about these ideas.

Teaching Fast and Slow Lessons from Art TEAMS Weekend

 This week the Art TEAMS teams got together again to start our Fall activities. We had a joyous day reconnecting and discussing the work we have started doing with our students based on the summer courses. The meeting has taught me a few lessons that will sit with us as we plan the interactions throughout the semester.

Lesson 1:

The impact of deep learning in the summer has already created impact on classrooms. Many of the teachers have reported implementing the Creative Research Journals and even starting the Inquiry Cycle. While it is hard to attribute the implementation to a specific cause. I believe that it was the mix of highly motivated teachers and the powerful learning we had in the summer.

Lesson 2:

Movement is still magic. We started the day with movement, and the teachers are hungry for more movement that is applicable for the classroom. We can make a real difference if we help teachers figure out this part of their work.

Lesson 3:

We always try to teach too much. We have provided our teachers with many tools. Now is the time to create more "air" in the curriculum and make sure teachers have enough time to share their work, plan next steps, and think deeply.

Finally a personal lesson from my reflection about the EMA project led by the Fabulous Gretchen Larsen.

When ideating, go slow and make sure that you spend enough time thinking about the centrality of your idea and my real commitment to it. I have moved too fast to really evaluate my commitment to the purpose of the design. Now I am slowing down and evaluating my project in early iteration. More soon!